Picture in Picture
by Tenda
Summary: A criticism on two dimensional pictures, told via a series of two dimensional pictures. Also, they are expressed in words. I can't say much without giving away things that make this as poignant as it may or may not be.


-1**PICTURE-IN-PICTURE**  
an Earthbound fanfic by Tenda

"Precognition is wild, as are all the powers of a prophet-- we are not to say what prophecy will show us, or what the unseeing eye will show. It is a mystery even to those who have made it their profession." -- Talah Rama, 1999, "_A Meditation on Uncertainty_"

_The fuzzy picture forms piecemeal. A man and a couch, a television and a TV tray. Microwave dinner, and a remote control. A shifting focus, and a look at what's on the screen._

"Welcome back to Eagleland's Most Wanted, ladies and gentlemen," a man in a suit opens somberly, hands behind his back, legs wide and defiant-- strong, but strange. "I'm Detective Atticus Fie, your host for the evening as we make our way through Eagleland's back streets to look at who _you_ should be looking for," he speaks fatherly, and the audience claps obediently, and he raises a finger towards the camera. He returns it to a natural state, behind his back.

"We begin with the usual, the most curious and most wanted criminals of Eagleland this decade--"

_The stage fades to black, and the camera pans to a television inside the television._

"Paula Polestar, pictured here--" here, being center-camera, with a burning building set in the backdrop-- "arguing with law enforcement officials, is a wanted woman; again, presumed dangerous, but not armed in the traditional sense. Watch."

The audio comes on, deafening at first; the crackling building backdrop dominates the scene, and the officer nearest Paula raises his voice to compete. He shouts, "Paula Polestar," and he shouts louder, blatantly spitting on her unflinching face, "Paula Polestar! You are accused of arson, and I will now read you your Miranda--"

The building ceases crackling momentarily to crash instead, as some unnamed and impossible-to-discern room collapses on itself in the heart of the blaze. The officer turns to watch, adjusting his cap, and turning back to the soot-stained ash-covered somewhat-singed Paula in pink-- "I will now read you your Miranda Rights! You have the right to remain silent!," the officer shouts into the face that is growing less and less expressionless, and more and more frustrated.

Frustratedly, then, Paula turns from the camera to the burning building, and makes a single, furious sweeping motion with her arms. Likewise, the wind blows-- stage right, to stage left-- and, as if by providence, the building freezes solid and still.

Instantly, the backdrop is an icicle. The officer center, and the officers likewise surrounding Paula, stare in astonishment; Paula remains frustrated, and idly brushes ash from her golden hair with a finger-- conceited in appearance, but appearing rightfully so.

In a moment's time, the house-- fast-frozen flash-frozen, an enormous hunk of egregious brown and blue protrusion-- collapses. It collapses altogether, in a distinctly-different crackling and crashing, and after a heartbeat's worth of astonishment Paula is seen sprinting off-camera and down the street, while the officers remain consumed.

The narration begins anew, as the cameraman pans to the side, away from the pursuing officers-- "Paula Polestar, an engineer of our faceless alien enemy, employs their powers against us. She is dangerous, and on the run--" the audio cuts again, and another television can be seen behind the barricade where the police and firefighters sit gawking. It is tuned, not to its appropriate closed-circuit channel, but to a domestic oddity of a show all about domestic oddities.

_The cameras here disjoint, and the scene fades to black-- ghost-like, the camera removes itself from the physical object of the same name and plunges into the police television._

"--Mark Thomas. Our next story tonight is one we barely caught on camera-- the authorities were quick to stop us. Join me, though, as we take a peek into another of Eagleland's Unsolved Mysteries," and he steps aside, dressed in no way dissimilar to the previous show's host, posing no differently, and lets the spotlights focus on a television, stage right.

Paula Polestar, beaming proudly, fixing her golden curls before she realizes the camera is on, turns to face a woman standing beside her. The woman is panicked, but seems calmed by Paula's presence-- the two are holding hands, which seems somewhat contrived due to the height difference of what is easily a foot.

A narrator, standing on-scene and facing a different camera-- a news broadcast, it seems-- is audible: "Paula Polestar, here meeting with Lisa Small for the first time, is about to embark on a rather strange adventure for a child of her age."

Paula waves to the camera-- the news camera, that is-- and begins making her way up the stairs.

"Lisa Small's home here in Threed has been, of late, _infested_ with the apparitions now common to the area. Paula Polestar has agreed to deliver the house back to its rightful owner, free of charge-- oh, it seems as if she's about to begin!--"

The door swings open of its own accord, nearly knocking the approaching Paula back down the ice-slicked steps, as an unearthly un-man figure lunges towards her. Green and dissheveled, the man is not unlike what a stereotypical science-fiction _zombie_ might look like, and an instinctive gesture by Paula causes the un-man to ignite, as if covered by nothing less than napalm.

Lisa Small shrieks as the flaming and flailing corpse runs back into the house, setting it ablaze spectacularly in the washed-out November air. "My son's still in there!"

The camera is now fidgety and wild, trying to ascertain all of the action as it happens-- Paula Polestar rushes into the burning building, desperate and panicked, and a lone man on the street happens to have a cell phone. The cameraman pans towards him in time to catch the dialing of three numbers-- indistinguishable at a distance, but discernible just the same-- and, as if in a maze of mirrors, a wall of Paula Polestar behind him.

The man is standing in front of a storefront-- Herschel's Electronics-- where no less than a dozen televisions are stacked and tuned to the evening news. Paula Polestar is there, in the corner inset of each, as the anchorwoman drabbles on.

_With a forceful jerk, the camera ejects itself again from its physical body and floats, ephemeral and airy, across a breezy sky to the storefront. It settles, curiously, before Herschel's Electronics._

"-- Paula Polestar, the most prolific of the children that have ceremoniously dubbed themselves "The Chosen Four", is headlining a recent campaign by the tots to bolster their public image. Contrary to government statements, the young Miss Polestar asserts that she and her friends are working _against_ the phantom enemy of Eagleland-- despite employing the same powers they do--"

_The voice distorts wildly, increasing in pitch and advancing towards what can only be called a wail that persists as the images flash back fast-forwarded; rewound, though-- and the last image seen before the images are gone entirely is the man from which it started; a man sitting alone, living alone, now turning off a television, with a single word-- "Crazy."_

Paula Polestar squeaks and drops the milkshake to the ground, gently rubbing her temples.

Ness laughs, "Paula, come on! You know better than to drink that so fast."

Paula opens her mouth to say something about how she hadn't realized-- it's been a long time since she's had time out to eat ice cream-- but a passing car honking its horn, over and over, takes the words away from her.

The milkshake hasn't spilled, and Paula slowly picks it up, and does nothing more than start drinking it again-- the car honking its horn is already forgotten, because Paula knows better than to try and figure out why.


End file.
